Wai Yuen Tong x Omnichat: OMO Trial Campaigns Drive 76% Message Open Rate

Founded in 1897, Wai Yuen Tong is the leading Chinese proprietary medicine and health supplement brand in Hong Kong. Wai Yuen Tong develops a diversified range of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and healthcare products, and features registered TCM practitioners across more than 70 retail stores, pioneering a new milestone in the TCM wellness industry. Meanwhile, it has expanded its market from Asia to North America to promote TCM and wellness culture globally. Embracing the new retail era, Wai Yuen Tong partnered with Omnichat to revolutionise the TCM retail customer journey through the integration of automated WhatsApp conversational marketing and OMO (Online-Merge-Offline) sales, unlocking digital transformation opportunities for this century-old brand.

Challenges in the New Retail Era

• Declining Trust in Traditional SMS: With the rampant spread of phishing messages, customer trust in traditional SMS has plummeted. When Wai Yuen Tong previously attempted to send notifications via SMS, a significant number of customers reverted to WhatsApp to verify the authenticity of the messages.
• Scattered Cross-Channel Inquiries: Customers flood in daily with massive inquiries from various channels. However, the official website, offline stores, and traditional phone inquiries operated independently, leaving the customer service (CS) team overwhelmed and unable to provide 24/7 instant responses.
• Time-Consuming TCM Phone Bookings: Apart from health supplement retail, TCM consultations represent a core service. With numerous brick-and-mortar stores, answering booking calls and making reminder calls the day before consultations consumed an enormous amount of store staff’s time.
• Data Disconnect Between Online and Offline (OMO): In the past, online marketing struggled to capture first-party data. This severely hindered precision marketing across online and offline channels and made it difficult to drive traffic accurately to brick-and-mortar stores.

Solution: Introducing Omnichat WhatsApp Automated Chat Marketing

To break through traditional conversational limitations and achieve digital transformation, Wai Yuen Tong decided to adopt Omnichat’s WhatsApp Business API solution. This allowed them to consolidate multi-channel messaging, enhance customer engagement, and collect data for subsequent remarketing.

Meta Official Blue Badge Verification

Wai Yuen Tong built a powerful bridge of trust with its customers through WhatsApp’s Meta official Blue Badge verification. The Blue Badge proves that users are interacting with the authentic brand, protecting them from fraud and ensuring security. Concurrently, this secure, encrypted messaging effectively safeguards customers’ sensitive health data, cultivating deep brand trust.

Adopting WhatsApp Flows to Recruit New Members

Previously, gathering customer data required redirecting users to external landing pages or engaging in a repetitive question-and-answer format. Wai Yuen Tong utilised Omnichat’s WhatsApp Flows feature, allowing customers who clicked on a Facebook ad or post to enter WhatsApp and fill out basic registration forms directly within the chat window. Completing the entire process without leaving the app drastically reduced form-drop-off rates.

OMO Online Traffic Driving to Offline Redemption

Wai Yuen Tong also leveraged Omnichat’s OMO (Online-Merge-Offline) sales solution. Using their flagship products as an entry point, they guided online users into the chat commerce environment to claim digital vouchers, which could then be redeemed at physical retail stores. This strategy successfully achieved a 76% message open rate and generated massive new foot traffic for brick-and-mortar stores across Hong Kong. This “online conversation, offline experience” OMO strategy effectively boosted product trial conversion rates, significantly increasing the likelihood of turning trial users into paying customers. Concurrently, satisfied customers organically shared their positive experiences, further stimulating sales growth.

Automated Customer Journeys: Product Replenishment & TCM Bookings

Beyond new customer acquisition, how does Wai Yuen Tong utilise WhatsApp to extend the customer life cycle? By deeply integrating their CRM system with Omnichat, they designed automated WhatsApp customer journeys tailored for both product replenishment and in-store TCM consultation services:

• Product Replenishment Reminders: Based on the customer’s historical purchasing cycle, the system automatically triggers a WhatsApp reminder message right before a product is about to run out, seamlessly boosting repurchasing rates.
• TCM Service Appointment Reminders: Customers can book appointments with a TCM practitioner directly through WhatsApp. The system then automatically dispatches a reminder message the day before the consultation, detailing the scheduled time and store location.
• Post-Consultation Care Messages: For patients who have completed their diagnosis, the system automatically sends a follow-up care message to inquire about their health status and remind them to book a follow-up consultation if necessary.
• Post-Consultation Feedback Surveys: The system automatically triggers a consultation experience rating survey, with the open rate for these follow-up messages reaching an impressive 81%.
  

Sandy Ng, CRM Manager at Wai Yuen Tong, explains: “We do not adopt technology simply to look tech-savvy, but to bring ‘warmth’ and foster human-to-human interaction. Our ultimate goal is to leverage Omnichat’s digital tools to bring customers back to our physical stores for genuine interactions with our staff and TCM practitioners, thereby perfecting the entire customer journey.” 

Consolidated Multi-Channel Messaging

Wai Yuen Tong utilises Omnichat’s omnichannel customer support messaging solution, centralising scattered inquiries and unlocking automation:

• One-Stop Message Integration: Integrates WhatsApp, WeChat, and the website’s live chat widget into a unified backend, enabling the customer service team to manage all consultations with one click, drastically improving response efficiency.

• Efficient Cross-Channel Routing: Currently, up to 70% of eShop and CS inquiries are successfully routed and handled via WhatsApp.
• Product Enquiry Chatbot: Chatbots are deployed within WhatsApp to provide 24/7 support, breaking through traditional business hour constraints. Whether customers inquire about products or TCM services, the system instantly delivers automated information.

Future Outlook: Combining AI TCM Digital Technology with Retail

Moving forward, Wai Yuen Tong will deepen its partnership with Omnichat by fully accelerating the application of Omni AI. This will enable the AI to deeply learn from the brand’s official website and proprietary TCM knowledge base, providing intelligent, round-the-clock consumer assistance.

Additionally, Wai Yuen Tong has introduced an “AI TCM” diagnostic device in select branches to analyse customers’ physical health conditions. This allows TCM practitioners to better understand and diagnose body constitutions, explain the AI-generated reports, and recommend relevant products. The device even embeds Omnichat digital coupons inside, creating a richer, seamless online-to-offline experience for modern consumers.